Setting up WordPress websites has become a regular part of my work. Much more than just for blogs, the platform is ideal for rapidly launching sites. In fact, nine out of ten WP sites I launch are non-blogging sites. I thought for my sake and for others who are looking for a checklist for what needs to be done to setup a WordPress website, I’d punch out a basic checklist for the process. This may get quite lengthy, but hopefully it will be a helpful resource to make sure all the bases are covered.

Hosting

• Search for and select domain an open domain.
• Sign-up with host and document access information.
• Setup ftp access and document access information.
• Setup MySQL database and document access information.
• Create sub-folder on host with the same name as domain (This allows easy launching of additional sites on same host) and point domain to sub-folder.

WordPress Install

• Download and unzip latest version of WordPress.
• Save wp-config-sample.php as wp-config and edit database access information in the top of the document. The documented info from your host provider, i.e. database name, host, username and password should be entered.
• Upload WordPress and go to the domain address in the browser.
• Click to install and be sure to copy the temporary Admin password into notepad and log-in to instigate the installation.
• Immediately change the Admin password to something familiar so that you don’t lock yourself out of WordPress.

Basic WordPress Configuration

• During installation check the "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors" during the configuration process. To change the setting later go to "Settings" under the Privacy link and change the option to "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines…".
• Search for and upload a theme to modify. For CSS gurus who want to configure I highly customized site, I recommend using the Sandbox theme. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it provides a strip-down template to build from scratch.
• Change the Permalink. Under settings in WP 2.5+ go to Permalinks and change the default. My favorite is the simple Custom Structure: /%postname%/.
• Write a Page called "Home" and set it as the default homepage. Under "Settings" click on "Reading" and for "Front page displays" click "A static page" and select "Home" for under the "Front page" drop-down.
• Setup the basic landing pages and sub-pages for the site. When a sub-page is created, under "Page Parent" select the parent page.
• Delete the site Description. In most cases I have no need for the "Tagline" that is used for blogs. I’ll add-in my own meta tags later. Go to "Settings" which brings-up "General Settings" and delete the "Tagline".

Install Plug-ins

• Download the FCKEditor for WordPress plugin. Unzip and upload folder to wp-content/plugins/. Then activate the plugin. This will instigate a much improved wysiwyg editor for pages and posts.
• Download and install the WordPress Database Backup plugin. This nifty plugin can schedule to email you a backup of the database on a weekly basis. You will still need to download your site periodically, but what an amazing function to capture the content from the site.
• Download and instlal cforms II an amazingly powerful forms configurator. This plugin is the most robust configurator I’ve found which both drops form submissions to a user-friendly database on the site as well as sends email submissions to the designated manager of the contacts.
• For sites requiring mobile access WordPress Mobile Edition plugin detects mobile users and serves-up the page in readable mobile format.
• The Search Pages plugin enables the search function to return results from both pages and posts.
• Install Google Analytics for web stats.

Design the Theme

• Create a back-up of the site before beginning to tweak the design.
• For a simple, straightforward site: replace the header image, modify color scheme, font treatment and spacing as needed.
• Tweak the navigation to display pages and ditch the other widgets except the search form.  If hard-coded changes are needed in the navigation, start by inspecting the header.php,  functions.php and possibly sidebar.php files. These will most likely contain the code for the menu.
• Populate the site with enough content including images to get a feel for how well the navigation and flow of the site works.
• Make adjustments to accomodate what is stipulated in the scope document. If you are working with a client, a scope document will save you grief as you will have the stipulated requirements for the site. This will help scope creep to get out of hand.

Before Going Live

• Create an account for content managers.
• Orient the user with the site with basic update training.
• Check for browser compatibility in major and current search engines. There’s much debate on this subject. Generally I ensure at least the current and previous versions of FireFox and IE work well.
• Go back to the Privacy setting and enable search engines to find the site.
• Spell check and surf the site looking for content or graphical errors. Ideally, it’s good to ask other folks to hit the site as well.
• Use the free online ad credits the host gives with a new account to help launch the site and emphasize to the client that ranking in the engines takes time.

There’s the initial run-down. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Depending on requirements the design phase could become quite lengthy. There are also a boat load of other plugins, but those are the most common ones I use for a typical configuration. I may continue to add items down the line as they come to mind. Any good suggestions will be added as well.

ScribeFire is a very well designed FireFox plug-in that enables a blogger to write posts right in their browser.

The features that I enjoy most about ScribeFire include:

1. Launch the editor right in the browser with an icon that rests at the bottom of the browser window.
2. Continue viewing a webpage while you write in the bottom-half of the screen.
3. Save your posts as notes and return to them later. This is especially handy if you are working on several at one time.
4. Upload your images from within the ScribeFire FTP function and insert into your post.
5. Post to multiple blogs from the same application.
6. Utilize the full WYSIWYG Editor for quick formatting.
7. Manage your tags from within ScribeFire.
8. Publish straight to the blog when finished editing.
9. Built-in spell check with just a right-click.

One of the frustrations I had with blogging directly into WordPresses blogging application was losing my information if I left that window or the connection to the server crashed for some reason. I find that I lose much less information when using ScribeFire. The content is written locally on my machine and even though it does not have an auto-save feature, the “Save as a Note” button is right below where I’m typing so I tend to save often and rarely lose text.

ScribeFire Supports the following blog applications and services:

• WordPress
• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Textpattern
• Roller
• MetaWeblog API
• Blogger
• WordPress.com
• TypePad.com
• Live Journal
• Windows Live Spaces
• Performancing
• Jeeran

If your blog is not on this list, you may want to try to manually setup through the Custom Blog settings. I have not yet been able to get Twitter, Jaiku or Pownce to work through ScribeFire.

One feature I don’t recommend: bookmarking in Del.icio.us and technorati.com. I found toggling between the functions to be a bit clunky. There are other more efficient and effective methods for interfacing with those sites than using ScribeFire. Like many programs, they added-in more features than needed. The magic of most well-developed plug-ins is their simplicity. That said, if you ignore that functionality, I think you will find this to be a very streamlined, rock solid method for updating your blog.

This is the best web editing tool I have found to date. Have you had any experience with other web editors? What features do you find most helpful?

Powered by ScribeFire.

As a developer I’ve spent who knows how many hours using print-screen to capture an image and pulling it into Photoshop just to get the colors or size dimensions. Not anymore with these nifty utilities.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Finally, I found a quick and convenient way to launch an FTP session in my browser. FireFTP add-on for Firefox now ranks as my top Plug-in. The program launches quickly within FireFox, is convenient to use because I already have Firefox open and was a snap to setup. The interace worked very similar to FileZilla with drag and drop transfer of files. Once you install the software, you’ll want to customize your toolbar under view by dragging the FireFTP icon to a toolbar. You will need to setup your accounts, which seemed pretty straight-forward. There’s really not the much too it and your done. As with all the other great plug-ins that I use with Firefox, this too is free. And if you don’t yet have the Firefox browser, what are you waiting for?

Powered by ScribeFire.

A developer friend of mine turned me on to the Firefox Add-on Firebug. This tool, not only is invaluable for troubleshooting code for developers, it proved invaluable for revising thoughtsparks.net. This nifty plug-in allows one to walk through the code and stylesheet on the fly while looking at a page. In the sea of WordPress styles, it helped to sort out what div was affected and allowed for fairly rapid revision to my blog. I’ve used this tool in a more robust environment as well and can testify to it’s utility across the spectrum. Check it out at: getfirebug.com.

BTW, any thoughts on the newer look for thoughtsparks.net? I take an evolutionary approach to site revision…a little at a time.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Tips for Using Plug-ins

1. Don’t use more plug-ins that are necessary. Plug-ins like any other addition to your page slow the load time. Most of your users are probably on broadband, but I’ve seen all too often bloggers overload their site to a noticeable degree.
2. Trust your friends not the coder. There are some really great solutions developed by brilliant folks out there. If they are solid someone will pick-up on it, use it and tell the world about it. Go with proven solutions.
3. Use traditional scripting when possible. I’ve noticed that some of the plug-ins developed are bloated and have seen some take my site down when applied. When possible I find a script that I can apply directly to the code rather than a plug-in. Those tend to be lighter and less problematic. Scripts usually involve placing some code in the header and a piece of code in the location to apply the affect on the page.

Alternate Example to a Plug-in

Last night I was mucking around with Jaiku and decided it was time to go the Jaiku way over Twitter. (Still posting to both but I like Jaikus stability and features). I found a plug-in to display latest Jaiku posts. The plug-in took my site down until I deactivated it. There were three things I noticed about the plug-in.

1. It wanted my Jaiku API code which is really not necessary with an RSS feed. This should have been my first tip-off that the guy didn’t think through his app.
2. The code was bloated. More code means slower load time.
3. He was a marketing guy doing coding. No offense here, I’m a designer and marketer as much as a coder which is why I don’t develop plug-ins, hehe.

I did a little more research and found a really light solution from PluggedOut Development that required placing a script in the header and a small piece of code in the side bar. It was light, non-invasive and developed by folks who know what they are doing. Works really well and I am one happy camper.

Recommended Plug-ins

1. Akismet - protection against spam. This is a no brainer. It comes already loaded, works amazingly well and is non-invasive to your users.
2. Global Translator. This plug-in boosts traffic from around the globe and is nicely configurable for layout. If you want to be more reachable to the world outside strong native speaker, use this plug-in.
3. WP-Print. This plug-in really shouldn’t be necessary but the designers of WordPress and tempate builders rarely think about making the site print-friendly which is really a no brainer in my book. Print-friendly pages largely involve dropping-out unnecessary elements on the page.

Plug-ins That Work OK

1. FCKEditor - Replaces the WordPress Editor buttons. It’s a little klunky, but better than the one pre-installed.
2. Sociable – This plug-in is ok, but I might ditch it with just some hardcoded icons and links. It’s an alternate way have folks bookmark your site.
3. Inline Ajax Comments – This plug-in looks cool but I’m thinking of ditching it. Not really sure if how much of an added benefit to the site.

Why Be More Conservative with Plug-ins and Buttons

1. Page loads lighter as I already indicated.
2. Many blogs look tacky with bright colors that cloud your message.
3. You are promoting other sites often without real benefit back to the purpose of your site.
4. You won’t win readership by cool effects, unless you are a generator of those effects.
5. Only use them if it makes your site more user-friendly or effective.

Keep your site light, focus on generating original content and apply good design principles to your site and you will win readership and respect from folks.

Peace out.